Clairol workers recall days they 'had more fun'

Martin B. Cassidy

Updated 11:24 pm, Sunday, April 7, 2013

Bruce Gelb, center, talks with Fred Cofone, left, Ravi Dhingra, third from left, and Ralph Giamba, during the Clairol employee reunion at Chelsea Piers in Stamford on Sunday, April 7, 2013. The Clairol company used to be based in the building that Chelsea Piers now occupies. Gelb was president of Clairol from 1965-1976. He was also the U.S. ambassador to Belgium under President George H.W. Bush.
Photo: Jason Rearick

Bruce Gelb, center, talks with Fred Cofone, left, Ravi Dhingra,...

Pat Bobwich looks through old photographs of her former co-workers during the Clairol employee reunion at Chelsea Piers in Stamford on Sunday, April 7, 2013. The Clairol company used to be based in the building that Chelsea Piers now occupies.
Photo: Jason Rearick

Pat Bobwich looks through old photographs of her former co-workers...

John Vibbert, center, talks with Karen Marks, left, and John Perry during the Clairol employee reunion at Chelsea Piers in Stamford on Sunday, April 7, 2013. The Clairol company used to be based in the building that Chelsea Piers now occupies.
Photo: Jason Rearick

John Vibbert, center, talks with Karen Marks, left, and John Perry...

John Louise, left, former art director for Clairol, chats with former Bruce Gelb, former president of the company, during the Clairol employee reunion at Chelsea Piers in Stamford on Sunday, April 7, 2013. The Clairol company used to be based in the building that Chelsea Piers now occupies. Gelb was president of Clairol from 1965-1976. He was also the U.S. ambassador to Belgium under President George H.W. Bush.
Photo: Jason Rearick

Before Clairol became one of America's most familiar product brands, Bruce S. Gelb said the company's Stamford factory struggled to stay afloat between 1940 and 1950.

In the lean years, which coincided with his adolescence, Gelb said he learned the ropes from the bottom up, working among Stamford residents in the company's first factory at 375 Fairfield Ave.

An awareness of the contributions of employees from those fledgling days gave the Gelb family a desire to ensure the company's culture was appreciative of employees after their hair-tinting products began flying off shelves in the 1950s, Gelb said.

"As I got older I began to understand the connection between Stamford and Clairol," said Gelb, 86, who was CEO of the company from 1965 to 1976. "Stamford was always a vital part of the identity of the company."

On Sunday afternoon, more than 200 former employees reunited at the Overlook Grill at Chelsea Piers, which was built on the site that had been Clairol's headquarters until 2009. Starting in 2007, Procter & Gamble, which owned the company, began the process of closing the facility and moving production to a new factory in Marsascala, Mexico, laying off and transferring hundreds of workers.

"I can't tell you how great it is to see all of these faces," Ralph Giamba, 64, who retired in 2009 after working on Clairol's production line since 1967.

Andy Tar, 64, who now works as facilities superintendent at Chelsea Piers and managed Clairol's plant between 1987 and 2009, said despite the overhaul and new tenants, the building's past history often comes to mind.

The sprawling Sports Center at Chelsea Piers, which houses a pool, two ice rinks, courts for basketball, squash, tennis and myriad training facilities for athletes, was Clairol's warehouse and loading facility capable of loading 10 trucks at a time.

"I can tell you it was a very emotional thing to be the last Clairol employee on the site," Tar said.

When John Louise, 84, the company's former worldwide creative director, arrived at the party, Gelb and others crowded around to see him and recall how he helped shape the company's marketing campaigns.

Louise said during his 47 years working on the Clairol brand, every marketing campaign was guided by the rhetorical question, "Who is she?" a reference to the hypothetical customer.

"It was incredible and the best days of my life," Louise said. "I worked with the greatest marketers in the world."

Pam Rittman, a former public relations officer for Clairol who lives in Stamford, said she and several other former employees put the word out about the party to former Clairol executives, administrators and factory workers earlier this year.

Rittman said from company founder Lawrence Gelb down through succeeding generations of leadership and management, the company treated workers like family, providing excellent training and opportunities.

"We had a wonderful camaraderie here," said Rittman, who worked for the company for 17 years. "I was able to go to school and the management was so great I learned how to manage people and run a business."

Clairol came to Stamford in 1940, nine years after the company was founded by Lawrence and Joan Gelb, New Yorkers living part time in Stamford. The Gelbs discovered hair-coloring products made by the French company Mury while on a trip to Paris. The Gelbs brought $200 worth of the hair dyes back to the United States, tested the market, and soon launched production in this country.

Their small New York factory outgrew its quarters, so the Gelbs relocated the company to Stamford, subsequently outgrowing two sites before establishing a massive plant off of Cove Road as the brand's heyday began, Gelb said.

The brand was bought by Bristol-Myers in 1959, but the Gelb family continued to stay involved.

Bruce S. Gelb recalled that during his tenure as CEO of Clairol he derailed a campaign at Bristol to shut down the Stamford plant and move it to North Carolina to save labor and production costs.

"We couldn't just up and leave behind hundreds of people who had worked for the company so long and been so important to its success," Gelb said.

In remarks to former employees, Gelb reminisced about two of the company's more indelible slogans, "Does she, or doesn't she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure" and "Is it true, that blondes have more fun?" which were used to promote Clairol products in the 1960s and 1970s.

"Those are part of the English language now," he said.

Elaine Vagnone, a former human resources manager for Clairol who left the company in 1996 when her job was eliminated, said her years at Clairol typify a bygone era when businesses were part of their community.

Vagnone, a Cove native, said Clairol's presence in the city, providing employment for many city residents, was an indelible part of her childhood on Leeds Street.

"It was like a family and when I say that it really was," said Vagnone, 55. "If someone wanted to talk to you they came and talked to you. You had a first name, and I think we've lost that."